Michelangelo Merisi da Caravaggio, known mononymously as Caravaggio, was an Italian painter active in Rome for a significant portion of his artistic life. He began his apprenticeship in Milan in 1584, and during the final four years of his life, he moved between Naples, Malta, and Sicily. His paintings have been characterized by art critics as combining a realistic observation of the human state, both physical and emotional, with a dramatic use of lighting, which had a formative influence on Baroque painting. October 9, 1571 – 1610; died at about 38. Alive at the same time as William Shakespeare, René Descartes, Elizabeth I of England, Johannes Kepler, and Giovanni Pierluigi da Palestrina. Wiki link